Aren’t these the fattest and most beautiful hens you’ve ever seen? They’re gorgeous and they’re lazy little freeloaders.
Not. One. Egg.
These girls are 30 weeks old. The barred rock Steve and Australorp Bellatrix are breeds that can both begin egg production by 16 weeks old. 20 is more typical. 18-22 for the americaunas Blue and Raquel. 20-24 weeks for the Crested Cream Legbar Pizza, and then Sunny and Ginger (our Buff Orpington and Wheaten French Marans) bringing up the rear at 26-30 weeks.
These gals have a perfect diet, a light that turns on at 3:30am to extend their “daylight hours” and supposedly stimulate egg production, and the fanciest coop ever. I added some more walls to make their nesting box more “private” in hopes of it helping, treated the entire flock and coop with a preventative mite spray (our friends lost a hen to mites last week. So sad! We have no problem with them, but I’m being overly cautious), and I added another roosting bar to their palace and an additional watering tray in the yard.
I’m fresh out of patience, chickens! I want eggs!
These hens are so symbolic of our life right now, it’s comical. There’s no visible reason for why we are waiting. We are trying to be patient, but we’re done. We’ve done the time, put in the work, and now we want to see results! Who will be our first layer? WILL we ever see an egg or do we have seven barren hens? Come on gals, give us SOMEthing good to show for 2020. We need a win, up in here! Also, I’m sick of buying eggs at the store when our hens are “prime laying weeks” and I should be getting a dozen from my flock every two days.
Crazy birds. Good thing they’re pretty, because if I didn’t love them so much I’d be considering a smoked chicken for Thanksgiving Dinner.
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